{ "id": "ep0gd57n6t", "slug": "i-spit-on-your-grave-2010-film", "title": "I Spit on Your Grave (2010 film)", "updated": "2026-11-01", "topic_path": [ { "id": "culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture" }, { "id": "culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.horror", "label": "Horror films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.horror" }, { "id": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.horror.exploitation-and-extreme-horror-films", "label": "Exploitation and extreme horror films", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/topics/culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.horror.exploitation-and-extreme-horror-films" } ], "geo": [ { "id": "geo.us.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.horror", "label": "United States · 2001 to 2020: Horror films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.horror", "path": [ { "id": "geo.us", "label": "United States", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us" }, { "id": "geo.us.t2001", "label": "United States · 2001 to 2020", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t2001" }, { "id": "geo.us.t2001.culture", "label": "Arts and culture", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t2001.culture" }, { "id": "geo.us.t2001.culture.performance", "label": "Screen and stage", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t2001.culture.performance" }, { "id": "geo.us.t2001.culture.performance.screen", "label": "Film and television", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t2001.culture.performance.screen" }, { "id": "geo.us.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films", "label": "Films and standalone screen works", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films" }, { "id": "geo.us.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works", "label": "Individual films by title and year", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works" }, { "id": "geo.us.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.horror", "label": "Horror films (individual works)", "api_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/api/v1/geo/geo.us.t2001.culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.horror" } ] } ], "excerpt": "I Spit on Your Grave (2010), also known as The Revenge of Jennifer Hills, is Steven R. Monroe's remake of Meir Zarchi's 1978 Day of the Woman, starring Sarah Butler as a novelist who takes violent revenge on her rapists; critically panned but commercially successful on DVD.", "snippet": "I Spit on Your Grave (2010), also known as The Revenge of Jennifer Hills, is Steven R. Monroe's remake of Meir Zarchi's 1978 Day of the Woman, starring Sarah Butler as a novelist who takes violent revenge on her rapists; critically panned but commercially successful on DVD.", "node": "culture.performance.screen.films.films.individual-works.horror.exploitation-and-extreme-horror-films", "markdown": "# I Spit on Your Grave (2010 film)\n\n**I Spit on Your Grave** is a 2010 American rape-and-revenge horror film directed by Steven R. Monroe, a remake of Meir Zarchi's controversial 1978 film *Day of the Woman*, which was retitled *I Spit on Your Grave* on re-release. It stars Sarah Butler as Jennifer Hills, a novelist who is gang-raped by a group of local men at a remote cabin and then hunts down and kills her attackers one by one.[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/66819-I-SPIT-ON-YOUR-GRAVE) • [2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/i_spit_on_your_grave_2010)\n\n| Key fact | Detail |\n|---|---|\n| Source | Remake of *Day of the Woman* (Cinemagic Pictures Inc., 1978), written by Meir Zarchi[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/66819-I-SPIT-ON-YOUR-GRAVE) |\n| Director / writer | Steven R. Monroe; screenplay credited to Stuart Morse by the AFI Catalog and to Adam Rockoff by Rotten Tomatoes[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/66819-I-SPIT-ON-YOUR-GRAVE) • [2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/i_spit_on_your_grave_2010) |\n| Production | CineTel Films; producers Lisa Hansen and Paul Hertzberg; distributed by Anchor Bay Films[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/66819-I-SPIT-ON-YOUR-GRAVE) |\n| Release | New York opening 8 October 2010; 107 minutes; rated R[1](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/66819-I-SPIT-ON-YOUR-GRAVE) |\n| Reception | Metascore 27 (generally unfavorable); 32% on the Rotten Tomatoes Tomatometer from 63 reviews, 48% audience score[3](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/i-spit-on-your-grave/critic-reviews/) • [2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/i_spit_on_your_grave_2010) |\n| UK classification | Passed 18 by the BBFC after 43 seconds of cuts to rapist-perspective and camcorder shots[4](https://www.bbfc.co.uk/case-studies/i-spit-on-your-grave) |\n| Franchise | Followed by *I Spit on Your Grave 2* (2013) and *I Spit on Your Grave III: Vengeance Is Mine* (2015)[4](https://www.bbfc.co.uk/case-studies/i-spit-on-your-grave) |\n\n## Spoilers\n\n### Plot and cast\n\nJennifer Hills, a writer from the city, rents an isolated cabin in the country to work on her novel. A gang of local men rape and torture her and leave her for dead. She survives and returns for vengeance, trapping the men one by one and inflicting pain on them with a ferocity that surpasses her own ordeal.[2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/i_spit_on_your_grave_2010)\n\nSarah Butler plays Jennifer. The supporting cast includes Jeff Branson as Johnny, Andrew Howard as Sheriff Storch, Daniel Franzese as Stanley, Rodney Eastman as Andy, Chad Lindberg as Matthew, and [Tracey Walter](https://www.edgepedia.org/tracey-walter).[2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/i_spit_on_your_grave_2010) • [5](https://tubitv.com/movies/460056/i-spit-on-your-grave)\n\n### Sequels\n\nThe remake was followed by *[I Spit on Your Grave 2](https://www.edgepedia.org/i-spit-on-your-grave-2)* (2013) and *[I Spit on Your Grave III: Vengeance Is Mine](https://www.edgepedia.org/i-spit-on-your-grave-iii-vengeance-is-mine)* (2015), both classified 18 by the BBFC, the 2013 film after 27 requested cuts across six scenes were made and the 2015 film uncut.[4](https://www.bbfc.co.uk/case-studies/i-spit-on-your-grave)\n\n## Relationship to the 1978 original\n\nThe original film, made in 1978 as *Day of the Woman*, was inspired by an experience of Meir Zarchi, who wrote, produced, and directed it; appalled reviewers and its inclusion in the 1983 British list of \"video nasties\" (1980s British list of banned violent video releases) earned it cult status that gave rise to the remake.[6](https://journals.ed.ac.uk/forum/article/download/681/962/2042) • [7](https://www.ispitonyourgrave1978.com/about/) Zarchi served as executive producer of the remake.[7](https://www.ispitonyourgrave1978.com/about/)\n\n**Changes in the remake.** Monroe removes the eroticized elements that defined Zarchi's film and instead emphasizes punitive violence.[8](https://studentaffairs.lehigh.edu/node/34085) The remake spends less screen time on the sexual assault and more on the violent revenge, and the deaths of the attackers are more gory and prolonged than the more functional killings of the original.[9](https://www.commonsensemedia.org/movie-reviews/i-spit-on-your-grave-2010) The British Board of Film Classification, which examined the remake in 2010, noted that it featured far less emphasis on female nudity than the original, but that its contemporary setting and higher production values rendered the rape scenes equally, if not more, disturbing.[4](https://www.bbfc.co.uk/case-studies/i-spit-on-your-grave)\n\nScholarly work on the remake places it in the context of the late-2000s horror market. Laura Mee, a researcher at the [University of Hertfordshire](https://www.edgepedia.org/university-of-hertfordshire), argues in her chapter on the rape-revenge remake that *I Spit on Your Grave* and *The Last House on the Left*, remade just over a year apart, show how filmmakers adapted 1970s exploitation content for a broader horror viewership, coding the films explicitly as horror with heightened suspense and explicit torture scenes that align them with torture porn (horror genre emphasizing graphic, prolonged torture as spectacle).[10](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/reanimated/gender-and-genre-in-the-raperevenge-remake/0F918793D4DA73107B8501DE64E033CA)\n\n## Reception\n\nCritical response was largely negative. The film holds a Metascore of 27, classified as generally unfavorable, with 9 of 14 counted critic reviews negative, 4 mixed, and 1 positive.[3](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/i-spit-on-your-grave/critic-reviews/) Rotten Tomatoes' critics consensus calls it \"well-shot exploitation that has less purpose and utility than in 1978,\" and the film scores 32 percent on the Tomatometer against 48 percent from audiences.[2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/i_spit_on_your_grave_2010)\n\nReviewers divided over whether the changes improved the material. Philip French of *The Guardian* found it better made and more plausible than the original, with the sexual violations less drawn out and the vengeance more violent and elaborate.[2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/i_spit_on_your_grave_2010) His colleague Peter Bradshaw gave it one star out of five, arguing that the rape and revenge halves sit in false opposition and that the film offers audiences who like the spectacle of men being tortured and women being raped \"a two-for-one deal.\"[11](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/jan/20/i-spit-on-your-grave-review) Roger Ebert, the film critic who won the [Pulitzer Prize](https://www.edgepedia.org/pulitzer-prize) for criticism in 1975, called it a despicable remake that adds \"a phony moral equivalency,\" noting that less time is devoted to the revenge and more to verbal, psychological, and physical violence against the woman.[12](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/i-spit-on-your-grave-2010) The *Los Angeles Times* review asked why anyone took the return trip, judging the apparent motivation to be a drastic increase in violence.[13](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-oct-07-la-et-spit-grave-review-story-story.html) Common Sense Media classes it as torture porn and judges that it does little to address the problems of the original.[9](https://www.commonsensemedia.org/movie-reviews/i-spit-on-your-grave-2010)\n\n## Commercial performance and classification\n\nRotten Tomatoes lists a US theatrical gross of $92.4K,[2](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/i_spit_on_your_grave_2010) while the streaming guide WhereCanIWatch lists a box office of $573K against a budget of $2 million.[14](https://www.wherecaniwatch.tv/watch/i-spit-on-your-grave-2010-43947) Producer Lisa Hansen of CineTel Films confirmed in an interview that \"the movie didn't do well theatrically, but it did do really well on DVD,\" and said a sequel was under consideration pending a story the producers believed in.[15](https://www.dreadcentral.com/news/31798/exclusive-i-spit-on-your-grave-2010-sequel-talk-and-what-you-didn-t-see/)\n\nIn the United Kingdom, the BBFC classified the film 18 for cinema and DVD after 43 seconds of cuts. The cuts removed brief elements emphasizing female nudity and reduced moments presenting the attacks from the rapists' point of view, most notably shots in which the gang films its degradation of the woman through a camcorder, which the Board judged encouraged viewer complicity rather than appalled spectatorship. With the cuts made, the Board concluded the rape scenes horrify and disgust rather than eroticize or endorse sexual violence.[4](https://www.bbfc.co.uk/case-studies/i-spit-on-your-grave)\n\n## References\n\n1. [I Spit on Your Grave (2010), AFI Catalog](https://catalog.afi.com/Film/66819-I-SPIT-ON-YOUR-GRAVE)\n2. [I Spit on Your Grave (2010), Rotten Tomatoes](https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/i_spit_on_your_grave_2010)\n3. [I Spit on Your Grave critic reviews, Metacritic](https://www.metacritic.com/movie/i-spit-on-your-grave/critic-reviews/)\n4. [I Spit On Your Grave (1978) case study, British Board of Film Classification](https://www.bbfc.co.uk/case-studies/i-spit-on-your-grave)\n5. [I Spit on Your Grave, Tubi](https://tubitv.com/movies/460056/i-spit-on-your-grave)\n6. [Nathalie S. Ingrassia, \"Rape, Revenge and Remake: Meir Zarchi's Day of the Woman and Steven Monroe's I Spit on Your Grave\", FORUM, University of Edinburgh](https://journals.ed.ac.uk/forum/article/download/681/962/2042)\n7. [About I Spit On Your Grave, ispitonyourgrave1978.com](https://www.ispitonyourgrave1978.com/about/)\n8. [I Spit on Your Grave (1978 and 2010), Lehigh University Student Affairs](https://studentaffairs.lehigh.edu/node/34085)\n9. [I Spit on Your Grave (2010) parents' guide, Common Sense Media](https://www.commonsensemedia.org/movie-reviews/i-spit-on-your-grave-2010)\n10. [Laura Mee, \"Gender and Genre in the Rape-Revenge Remake\", in *Reanimated* (Edinburgh University Press, 2022), Cambridge Core](https://www.cambridge.org/core/books/abs/reanimated/gender-and-genre-in-the-raperevenge-remake/0F918793D4DA73107B8501DE64E033CA)\n11. [Peter Bradshaw, \"I Spit on Your Grave – review\", The Guardian, 20 January 2011](https://www.theguardian.com/film/2011/jan/20/i-spit-on-your-grave-review)\n12. [Roger Ebert, \"And I spit on your violence toward women\", rogerebert.com, 6 October 2010](https://www.rogerebert.com/reviews/i-spit-on-your-grave-2010)\n13. [Michael Ordoña, \"Movie review: 'I Spit On Your Grave'\", Los Angeles Times, 7 October 2010](https://www.latimes.com/archives/la-xpm-2010-oct-07-la-et-spit-grave-review-story-story.html)\n14. [I Spit on Your Grave (2010), WhereCanIWatch](https://www.wherecaniwatch.tv/watch/i-spit-on-your-grave-2010-43947)\n15. [\"Exclusive: I Spit on Your Grave 2010 Sequel Talk and What You Didn't See!\", Dread Central](https://www.dreadcentral.com/news/31798/exclusive-i-spit-on-your-grave-2010-sequel-talk-and-what-you-didn-t-see/)\n\n---\n*Topic: Encyclopedia › Arts and culture › Screen and stage › Film and television › Films and standalone screen works › Individual films by title and year › Horror films (individual works) › Exploitation and extreme horror films*\n\n*Initially written Sep 17, 2026 · Reviewed: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026 · Edited: Oct 3, 2026; Oct 25, 2026; Nov 1, 2026 · Last review: Oct 25, 2026*\n\n*Copyright 2026 EdgeChat AI, a subsidiary of Biostate AI.*\n\nLicense: Edgepedia Community License 1.0, https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license\n", "same_as": [], "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/i-spit-on-your-grave-2010-film", "markdown_url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/i-spit-on-your-grave-2010-film.md", "license": { "name": "Edgepedia Community License 1.0", "url": "https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license", "summary": "Free with credit, commercial use included. AI training is open to everyone. For other uses, organizations over USD 100M in revenue or 100M monthly users license separately.", "spdx": "LicenseRef-Edgepedia-Community-1.0" }, "credit": "\"I Spit on Your Grave (2010 film)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/i-spit-on-your-grave-2010-film. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "credit_md": "\"[I Spit on Your Grave (2010 film)](https://www.edgepedia.org/i-spit-on-your-grave-2010-film)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), [https://www.edgepedia.org/i-spit-on-your-grave-2010-film](https://www.edgepedia.org/i-spit-on-your-grave-2010-film). [Edgepedia Community License 1.0](https://www.edgepedia.org/edgepedia/license).", "credit_html": "\"I Spit on Your Grave (2010 film)\", Edgepedia (EdgeChat), https://www.edgepedia.org/i-spit-on-your-grave-2010-film. Edgepedia Community License 1.0.", "speakable": "I Spit on Your Grave, also known as The Revenge of Jennifer Hills, is Steven R." }